Let's talk about Tom Daschle's wife, Linda, and all of her lobbying of Congress and all of the money that the Daschle family earns from it.
"How much money?"
Well, we don't know, because Tom Daschle will not release his tax returns and tell everybody how much he's making via his wife. That's one of the advantages to being a Democrat. You don't have to release stuff like that, and the press never screams about it. It was the same case with Bill Clinton's medical records, which he never, ever released.
Let's talk about Linda Daschle on things like the bill that took over paying for airport security. It was a huge boon for the airlines, and Linda Daschle just happens to be a paid lobbyist for the airlines. This story is finally getting out in the mainstream press, and it should be, because Daschle says Bush ought to release every document on this Harken non-story.
What a hypocrite!
Daschle is pretty cozy with big business himself, since it's a major source of his family income."
In 2001 alone, Loral paid $460,000 to Linda Daschle's firm for lobbying. L-3 Communications is an even hotter issue, and the conflict of interest there may well put the Daschles in danger. They hired Mrs. Daschle when airlines complained about buying L-3 bomb detectors to screen airline baggage because they were "inferior to a competitor's." But Linda Daschle fixed it up. So inferior machines, that never worked, are being used to screen baggage because of Linda Daschle's lobbying - and the Daschle's say we don't have a right to see how much money they sold our security and airline safety for?
As Daschle hypocritically screams for the heads of CEOs, and says they let people down, we find ourselves confused. For eight years, we were told that character didn't matter. We were told that whatever a person did in his private life didn't matter, so long as they were liberal on the right issues. We were told that "everybody does it." So I'm confused when I listen to the way they're talking now. They're the new character cops.
Tom, we're "concerned" and "disappointed," and we must "get to the bottom of this." Open up your tax returns. Let's see how much money you're earning in non-conflicts of interest via your wife. It would certainly answer a lot of questions. Let's put this behind us, Tom. We're not suggesting, Tom, that you've done anything illegal. We're concerned about an appearance of impropriety. It's the seriousness of the charge that matters, so we must investigate.
If you're going to ask for all kinds of information and data from the president, why, it's only fair that you turn over all of the same kind of information so that we can do an A-B, side-by-side comparison and find out exactly whether or not you have any right to ask, in a moral or ethical sense. What are you hiding? And if you have nothing to hide, why not just release your tax returns like the president and vice president and Algore and Bill Clinton and everyone else in Washington D.C. have done. The people have a right to know, Tom. Set an example for the president, Tom. Don't be a hypocrite. Release your tax returns - now. |
